Schrödinger's Cat
by Athirae
Summary: They say that multiple realities exist at once. In one, John presses the barrel of a gun in his mouth and fails. In another, he succeeds. Post-Reichenbach reunion fic. Obvious Johnlock.
1. If at first you don't succeed

John could feel the tear tracks dried on his face. Any day in the past, he might've brought the back of his hand up and tried to rub them into nonexistence—he was a soldier, dammit. Was. He choked out another sob. Everything just _was. _His job _was. _Company _was. _Eating _was. _Happiness _was._

Sherlock _was._

He buried his head in his hands pathetically and tried to stifle the tremors and tears. Nothing was helping. Nothing helped anymore. Before Sherlock, he was nothing but a useless doctor with a limp and nightmares, and after, he was a pitiful excuse for a man that had driven off his friends because they reminded him too much of life with his flatmate, because they didn't _understand_ how he felt no matter how many times they patted his shoulder and told him otherwise. What was the point of eating or smiling when he had a gigantic hole in his chest?

Too many questions. Why did Sherlock jump? What had he been trying to accomplish? Why didn't John mean anything to him? No. He meant something. Sherlock had made him watch as he jumped, as he severed their ties. Why did he call John—why did he use those last words to lie to him?

_I believed in you._

He lifted his eyes and made out the flat through his blurry vision. Everything was untouched. Mrs. Hudson had tried to convince him to donate Sherlock's things; his therapist had suggested he at least go through them to help the healing process. He didn't want to talk to either of them. They didn't know how hard it was, how pointless it was, to rifle through his flatmate's things, stirring up dust and memories, the hope he might hear _that_ petulant voice in the background commanding him to cease at once so that John could yell back, call him a hypocrite for always violating John's space and using his things.

He never knew how much he would miss him. The violin at three in the morning. The bullet holes in the wall. Feet in the fridge. The way he clenched his hand and brought it to his face when he was thinking about something particularly stressful. That deep voice demanding tea. Those eyes giving him The Look. They had all been a part of his life for too bloody long just to have them ripped away without any warning.

His words at the graveyard came back to him.

_I was alone._

_I owe you so much._

He hadn't been back but once since. He'd tried to go on his own, but standing there, staring at that damned black stone with those letters glaring back at him, mocking him, gloating that they had his friend and were never going to return him, John Watson had never felt so alone, so helpless, and so empty. Not even when he was shot and lost the only career and home he'd known for so long. This was much worse. He had lost his other half this time. That's what they were, weren't they? Doctor John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

Could one exist without the other?

John was done trying. He glanced down at the phone on the table, lit up with the name of a contact that could no longer contact him. It was a wonder the phone even worked, but John assumed Mycroft had to do with the paying of his bill, just like he assumed Mrs. Hudson was covering the rent of the flat.

He knew that was the extent of their service, however, because what John was about to do, he had already contemplated twice before. If Mycroft were watching, he would have stopped him. Or would he? If he didn't interfere, all loose ends would be nicely tied up—but he knew that the Holmeses did adore leaving messes behind.

This would be the last time he cleaned up after Sherlock.

Next to the phone was a gun, already loaded. All he needed to do was stick it in his mouth and aim upward like he'd done twice before. The only difference was that he would pull the trigger this time and the pain would stop. He slid his left hand around the weight of it and brought it up. Another round of tremors shook him, but he managed to bite them back long enough to open his mouth, barrel sliding in, teeth clattering against it.

_Goodbye._

* * *

Sherlock tossed his disguise in a trash receptacle as he passed it and strode a little too merrily en route to a black door that for a long time he associated with home. It was a ridiculous thought, of course. Sherlock Holmes, despite the irony of his name, did not have a home. He had places to conduct experiments, to pace, to make coffee, and to play his violin, but he did not have homes.

Then, why return here?

A familiar smile flashed through his mind's eye. He could almost hear the exasperated '_brilliant_' muttered from those lips, something that brought a smile to his own, no matter how he tried to hide it or suppress it. He felt a strong, unwavering hand that had killed for him slide across his chest to pluck out his phone—could almost taste the tea he demanded that always overwhelmed his tongue with a indubitable warming sense of _John._

No, Sherlock Holmes did not have a home by definition. He didn't have four walls, a roof, and a place to sleep that he'd attached sentiment to. He had a man that had always been at his side, through good and bad. John was his home, and at long last, he was returning.

He opened the door, surprised to find it unlocked, but then again, he presumed that once he'd left the picture, all the excitement and need for protection had as well. At least after a while. Mycroft, upon finding him alive through his unfathomable network of cameras, had updated Sherlock with short texts that told him about John.

_Break in. -MH_

_Rocks thrown at window. -MH_

_Thwarted spray paint attempt. –MH_

If Sherlock hadn't started ignoring the texts, he might have received ones like _John hasn't left flat for days _or _He attempted suicide _and its companion message a few months later with the same words and _again_ tacked on to the end. Sherlock had to focus on taking down Moriarty, who he knew was alive, and his web of criminals, and he'd done just that. Moran was dead, as well as a good number of men Sherlock himself had the pleasure to dismantle.

As for Moriarty, well, Mycroft had ensured his arrival to and holding at the top psychiatric ward in the country.

He looked both ways for Mrs. Hudson, and not finding her, he bounded up the familiar steps. With each stair, his confidence faded and his ascent slowed. What if John didn't want to see him? No, of course he did. As long as Sherlock explained himself, John would accept the truth—accept _him_—and move on, back to how things used to be. That was where his knowledge of human emotions failed him. He could see their outward signs, catalogue them to a science, but he didn't know what instigated them and what didn't. _Would _John be happy? _Would _he understand? Sherlock remembered John's reaction to his apparent disregard for Mrs. Hudson's health the day he jumped.

_You machine._

Would he still be a machine for having saved John's life? For having saved Lestrade's and Mrs. Hudson's? Even if he explained it, he knew John wouldn't see it that way. He didn't know why—God, he didn't understand people—but he knew exact how John would react. This didn't deter his approach.

On the closed door to their flat was a note that, judging by the creases and placement of the tape, had been placed in distress or hurry. Upon reading the note, written in shaky, sharp writing, he knew it was both.

_Mrs. Hudson,_

_Thank you for trying to help me. I don't know how to pay you back, but I'll start with this. Don't open the door. I don't want you to see this._

_Please. For me._

_John Watson_

Any other time, Sherlock would have rolled his eyes at the signature. Of course it was John who had written it. It was outside of their door, and John was the only one who lived in the flat. But he didn't roll his eyes. All his merriment of returning promptly fled the premises.

_Don't want her to see what, John?_

Without thinking, Sherlock opened the door.

Never in a million years would he have deduced what he found. John was sitting on the couch, back straight, shoulders shaking. His head was tilted forward, and his eyes were clenched shut. Sherlock could see their redness from here, could see every detail. The tears. The unkempt hair, sticking in a thousand directions from John running his hands through it obsessively and tugging. The tension in his posture. The phone on the table, alight with something Sherlock couldn't see. But the gun. He mostly saw the gun, the barrel of which had disappeared into John's mouth, his hand wrapped so tightly around it his knuckles were white, the finger simultaneously clutching the trigger as John's eyes opened to the doorway.

Sherlock was across the room in less than half a second, wrenching the gun from John's hands, disarming and dismantling it in record time, and throwing the pieces to the far end of the couch. He took that scared face into his hands and tilted it up to his. John's eyes were devoid of light and irritated from crying. His nose was flushed with colour, lips chapped and bitten, cheeks sticky with dried tears, skin pulled tighter over his bones than before—

His spontaneous observations were all silenced when John spoke to him for the first time in years.

"Oh, Jesus," he said, wonderingly. "I've actually succeeded this time."

Sherlock's brows furrowed. "Succeeded at what?" From where he was standing, John had failed miserably and Sherlock should have been the one dancing in triumph.

John laughed. He _laughed. _"Nope, must've just gone mad. Sherlock I know wouldn't ask a question he knows the answer to." Just as Sherlock opened his mouth, John's face switched like a light. He had been all smiles and incredulity, but now, he was angry, and Sherlock recognized it a second too late.

John abruptly stood at the same time a fist collided with the right side of Sherlock's face. He took a step back from John, shocked, and brought a hand to his cheek when the onslaught began.

"Alive? You're bloody _alive?_" His voice seethed with pain. "You're a bast—no. Nope." He smiled and shook his head to himself. "I've lost it," he surmised to no one in particular while turning to the window, tucking an arm across his chest and bringing the other up to his lips where a smirk lingered. "You think I should call my therapist?"

"John—."

"No," he warned. "No, you can't be." He tucked his face into his hand, muffling his voice. "Because if you were, all of this was—that means everything was—," he tripped on the word. "Oh, God. Oh, _God."_

* * *

John Watson had to have lost his mind or else he wouldn't be standing in his flat, very nearly having a panic attack, with his dead flatmate watching him from across the room. He wanted to deny everything. He had watched Sherlock fall. He had seen the blood. For God's sake, he had taken the man's pulse—visited his grave! No, Sherlock couldn't be alive.

Because if he was, then all of John's grieving was for nothing. If he was, John abandoned his friends, stopped taking care of himself, rarely left the flat, quit his job, and sobbed relentlessly over someone who was living, breathing, and apparently carrying on just fine without him.

He wiped away his forming tears, sniffled, and pulled himself together as much as he could in order to face Sherlock, who was now a good distance away, presumably because he was afraid John would punch him again. John had almost forgotten about that.

"How?" was all he asked.

"Molly," was all Sherlock answered. Like fencing, they were just dancing around each other, making a move for every one dealt.

John nodded sarcastically as if that explained everything. "Of course." He sucked in his lips, pressing them together, before releasing them. "And, um," he made a go-on gesture, "why?" The word was barely more than formed with his lips; his throat had closed off again with swelling emotion, and he jerked his head away, furrowed his brows, pursed his lips, and diverted his gaze as if it would restore his dignity.

Sherlock ducked his head for the first time. "Moriarty was going to kill you."

John nodded in that familiar way again and said dismissively, "Yup. Explains everything. Sorry for doubting you." He walked off, calling behind him, "Tea's in the kitchen. Room's as you left it."

"John—," he called, but he distinctly heard the sound of a bedroom door slamming. There was no use in forcing the matter. Although it was only six in the evening, Sherlock retired to his room, rarely used, more out of a sense of pleasing John than because he was actually tired. He was rarely tired, but of course, he seemed to have missed his body's warning signs again. Not two minutes after sprawling on the bed with his shoes and coat still on as he tried to put his finger on the foreign scent emanating from his sheets, he was out like a light.

* * *

When he woke up, he instantly knew what the smell surrounding him was, and further investigation only proved his theory. Something crawled its way up to his throat and lodged itself there. John. John had been here.

He slid out of bed and wandered into the kitchen, which served more as a morgue than a place to prepare food. No, that wasn't true. Now, it was just a kitchen. John, as sentimental as he was, was practical. He wouldn't have kept things, dead things especially, that would have expired and rotted in the fridge. There were parts of John Watson that were predictable, but as Sherlock was coming to understand, there were many aspects of his flatmate that were still mysterious.

This being said, it both surprised Sherlock and didn't when John stepped out of the living room and into the kitchen with a cup of tea in his hands. His gaze flicked up to Sherlock's momentarily in a bored manner. Why he was up at this hour—before Sherlock—was a mystery. It had to be five a.m.

"Oh," he said behind his cup. "You're still here? Thought you might leave again," he explained, placing his cup on the counter, "but it seems you prefer to do that when I'm watching."

Sherlock snapped his name at him petulantly, but the fire in his eyes died abruptly. John reached up to grab another cup from the cupboard, presumably to give Sherlock despite how pissed he still was. His jumper slid up enough that Sherlock caught a glance of his stomach and waist. A glance was all he needed.

John had driven two new holes into his belt to make up for his dramatic weight loss—of course he would. John wore jumpers until they practically screamed to be laid to rest. Why would he go out a buy new jeans? No, he didn't go out. When Sherlock had woken up in the middle of the night, he'd turned on his phone and scrolled through Mycroft's texts in the hopes it would tell him why John was behaving this way. The first text he'd ignored was one telling him of John's seclusion.

The belt wasn't all that bothered him, though. The small strip of skin was not the one Sherlock had memorized the few times his flatmate had forgotten to bring anything to the bathroom and had to traipse back to his room in only a towel. His stomach then had been fleshy with just undertones of his military career. Now, he was practically emaciated.

Sherlock stormed across the room and jerked up his flatmate's jumper without invitation. It sent the teacup to the floor.

"Jesus Christ, Sherlock!" John ripped away from him and bent down to assess the best way to deal with the teacup's shattered remains. Deciding it couldn't be picked up by hand, he stood back up and glowered at Sherlock from below. "What the hell was that about?"

Sherlock was already pacing. His mop of curly hair, freshly cut before his arrival so as not to shock John with any _more _abrupt change, bounced with his quick, over-exaggerated steps. "This isn't right," he kept muttering to himself. "How were my calculations wrong?"

"Sherlock—."

"This can't be right. I accounted for everything."

"Sherlock—."

"Did I make a mistake?"

"_Sherlock!_" This jerked him from his ponderings. He glanced back at his friend, brandishing the empty cup from the counter as if he would throw it at him as a last resort for his attentions. "_What _isn't to plan?"

Sherlock fixed him with The Look, and John blew out a frustrated sigh. "You," he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You've been grieving. You haven't eaten a thing. You tried to kill yourself. Mycroft said you hadn't left the—"

"Mycroft?" John said, voice rising in intensity.

"flat unless you absolutely had to, which isn't much. I mean, you haven't been eating, so why would you go out to shop? You quit your job, so Mrs. Hudson is obviously covering the rent, which means she's doing your shopping, too—"

"Would you stop nosing in my damn business?" John snapped, and slammed the cup back on the counter. But Sherlock was ignoring him again.

"It doesn't make any sense. Why? _Why_ would you grieve like this? It doesn't follow anything I had planned," he said into his fingertips, steepled in front of his lips.

Sherlock had planned how sad he was going to be and how he was going to react? Well, that was just brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant. He couldn't let John in on the secret, much less the explanation, but he could damn well sit down and calculate how upset his flatmate would be. "Well," John bit out with a cutting smirk, "I'm sorry my grief didn't go according to your plans."

"You were a soldier, John," Sherlock said quickly in an aggravated and childish tone. John half expected him to stamp his foot and throw a tantrum, which John knew wasn't beyond him. "A soldier who lost his friend! I read you—I read you and yet I still can't see why you didn't move on, why you holed yourself up in this flat and cast away the outside world for _years_! You even slept in my bed!"

"God damn it, Sherlock." He could feel the tears coming, despite how he willed them away. He wanted to be angry, dammit. He wanted to snarl at Sherlock, give him a bruise on his left cheek to match the one that bloomed on his right; he wanted to curl up into a ball and cry, wanted Sherlock to wrap his arms around him, to _apologize, _to _explain_ so maybe it stopped hurting so bad. How could he feel the pangs of loss when Sherlock was standing right in front of him with the same arrogant, frustrated look on his face that John had come to expect? "Why do you feel the need to press every damn issue?" His anger was quickly subsiding in place of sorrow, and he didn't want to be around Sherlock when he started crying like a baby again.

Sherlock's fingers curled tensely in the air as if he were strangling some imaginary enemy. "Because I need to understand!"

John jabbed a finger in his direction. "Understand this: you don't need to know everything and you don't know everything, especially about bloody human emotions. You don't know how I felt, and you never will." He took a little too long to blink in his attempt to hold back the oncoming tears.

"How you felt?" Now, Sherlock was back to his selfish ways. No, not selfish. To Sherlock, it was just logic. Emotions, morals, reasons, none of it mattered when it was all _logical._"How about how I felt?"

"Why does everything have to be about you, Sherlock?" he yelled back with the last of his energy.

"Because it is about me!"

They both stopped. John looked straight into Sherlock's eyes, the frustration there slowly fading. The colour there was as enigmatic as the man the irises belonged to. But the only thing that mattered was every blink, every minute shift of his nose and chest that indicated he was breathing, every twitch of Sherlock's lips because God help the man, he couldn't stop speaking if someone paid him to do it.

It mattered because Sherlock was alive. He was alive and back at Baker Street with John, where he belonged. Sherlock was the piece of the puzzle that had always been missing from his life, and damn his anger if it was going to chase him away. He needed Sherlock. There wasn't anyone in the entire world, anyone out of seven billion people, that could ever replace the man standing in front of him. That fact had crippled him before, when Sherlock was gone, but now, it made everything feel right again. He had his essential piece.

"You're right," John admitted quietly, holding his eyes. "This is about you."

* * *

Sherlock gazed back at John. Through the silence, John's sharper face had softened, but it wasn't with the sadness Sherlock had seen so many times in less than twenty-four hours. It was a new type of pain. Those dark eyes drew him in, made him want to step closer, if only to erase the pitiful look of sheer _want _they drenched Sherlock with.

Mouth opening and closing, words finally failed him. He could only stare back until John turned away, no longer swift and angry, and sauntered over to the window of the living room. The dawn had coloured the sky and blotted out several stars, stars that John normally would have teased him about because he'd deleted their importance.

Sherlock followed after him. The steps were deliberately made so that John could hear his approach, despite how gracefully he moved, much like a cat sneaking about. The tense back in front of him was smooth, turned to him, shoulders fallen in defeat.

Sherlock knew now. He knew why John hadn't gone to plan; he had found a hole in Sherlock's sight and festered there. He could have beaten himself for how blind he had to have been to have missed all the signs. They were right there, blinking in neon letters, and Sherlock had missed them. He could read that flashing sign clear as day now, though.

"Once you remove the impossible," he murmured, "whatever remains…however improbable…must be the truth." He was close enough now that he could feel the heat of John radiating across his chest when he spoke. "You think you love me."

John shook his head and continued to look out the window. "Not think, Sherlock," he whispered. "Not think."

* * *

The next day, Sherlock told John he needed to visit Lestrade so that he could begin to prove his innocence and plan his return. John, sitting on the couch with a two-year-old newspaper, only nodded his understanding. He hadn't said more than six words to Sherlock since he'd confessed yesterday, and Sherlock had taken the opportunity to explain himself and where he'd been since the fall. John had nodded silently, drank his tea, and listened to every word.

"Aren't you coming?" Sherlock asked as he fixed his scarf around his neck.

"Not today," he said over the paper.

"But you always want to come." This didn't earn him a response.

There was a knock at the door before it flew open without warning. Mrs. Hudson, carrying a tray of tea and biscuits, traipsed on in. "John, dear, I know you've been upset—but what's with this note on the door? It doesn't make sense—."

She finally soaked in her surroundings. John's gaze flicked to Sherlock worriedly, but Sherlock held his ground. Mrs. Hudson just tutted and shook her head. "Should've known, dear. I'm going to need more biscuits." And she was out the door.

* * *

Sherlock sent a text to Lestrade to arrange a meeting, which only earned him an immediate phone call in return. He ignored it and sent another text complaining of Lestrade's absolute dullness and predictability. He did get a response this time and was off to meet the D.I. in the most discreet location Lestrade could think of. Sherlock tried to stay out of the public eye without his disguise on and was rewarded with a successful meeting.

After overcoming his initial shock, Lestrade agreed to help Sherlock.

"God, I should've known. All those criminals turning up dead across Europe? Moriarty taken into high level psychiatric care?"

"You never did have an eye for detail. That is why you call me."

Lestrade shook his head. "Where's John when you need him to slap your wrist so you stop insulting people?" he asked playfully, but having no social cues whatsoever, Sherlock answered him seriously.

"At the flat. He refused to join me."

Lestrade looked appalled. "Oh, God, you actually went to see him? I'm surprised we weren't called to come pick up your body and interrogate John, knowing the kind of train wreck that must've been."

"Train wreck?" Sherlock echoed. "Why on Earth would it have been a train wreck?"

Lestrade shifted on the park bench. "Look. John's was a mess when I last saw him, which was two years ago when he would still leave the flat. I can only imagine how he is now, and you're not exactly the most…sympathetic person in the world."

"I can be sympathetic."

"No, you can't, Sherlock. Just get back to him and make sure he's really okay?"

Sherlock fingered essential parts of John's dismembered gun that he had slipped in his pocket when John was making tea in the kitchen. He nodded.

* * *

When he returned to the flat, it was oddly silent. John didn't speak much and drifted around like a ghost, but even then, there was a sense of occupancy. Sherlock felt entirely alone, and he instantly dove into worry and searched the flat. Had John procured another gun since he'd left? Was he dead in the flat? Where would he have gone? He tried to deduce everything but stopped when his eyes caught the old paper John had been reading. _Fake Detective Commits Suicide _sprawled across the front page in bold, black letters, and on top of it sat John's phone. By instinct, Sherlock picked it up and unlocked the screen only to feel like someone had kicked him in the chest.

The new background for the phone was a picture of John sitting on the couch, duct tape over his mouth and a giant sign reading _I O U _written in black marker propped up in his lap. Sherlock immediately pulled out his phone and dialed Lestrade's number, staring at the background the entire time.

_'Jesus, Sherlock. Can't talk in a phone when I need you, but—.'_

"He took John."

_'What? Who took John?'_

"Moriarty," he seethed, squeezing the phone in his grasp.

_'But he's locked up! How the hell—'_

"There has to have been someone I missed. Someone I didn't eliminate. Who? _Who?_" Then, he remembered Mrs. Hudson. He hung up on Lestrade without missing a beat and barrelled down the stairs to find her, and find her he did.

Just like John, she had been bound and topped off with a pretty little IOU sign. Sherlock darted to the couch and removed the tape over her mouth with more care than he was willing to acknowledge. Strangely, the first words out of his mouth were 'Are you alright?' not 'Where's John?' but he didn't allow it to puzzle him.

"Fine, dear. I'm fine. Just a little shaken up." She lifted her bound arms to Sherlock's face. "We have to go, though. They've got poor John." Sherlock made quick work of the ropes just as Mrs. Hudson made quick work of telling him all that she knew. "Don't know why," she said. "Told me exactly where he was."

It hit Sherlock. Of course. _Of course. _Moriarty wasn't going to take out his friends because he'd returned, not this easily. No. He was just showing Sherlock that despite being locked up, he still pulled the strings and he could do as he damn well pleased whenever he had the urge to do it.

"Come alone," he said, pulling her from the couch and out the door.

"Where are we going?"

"To John," he answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "And if I don't show up with you, I will _never _hear the end of it."

Mrs. Hudson could only chuckle as he hailed a cab. John had had such a good influence on him when they'd been together, and Sherlock wasn't even aware of it. She told the cabbie the address while snatching up Sherlock's phone where he had forgotten about in his coat, and off they went.

* * *

Lestrade met them there. Or rather, beat them there. It was the small park where Sherlock had met Lestrade to discuss his unveiling, which sent shivers down Sherlock's spine he would never admit to. Moriarty knew everything, somehow, and it was bothering Sherlock. Who was his connection to the outside world? Who had Sherlock missed?

As the cab pulled up to the scene, Sherlock forgot all of his questions and darted like a mad man into the middle of the scene. Images of John, bloodied and lifeless in the grass, a bullet hole in his head, glazed eyes staring at him, all filled his mind. Ambulance and police lights flashed in the receding daylight, and Sherlock headed straight for them, ignorant of every shocked gaze turned his way. His blood pumped and screamed in his ears—_John, John, John._ It was his only thought. His only concern. He had taken care of Mrs. Hudson, but the entire time, his body had been screaming bloody murder that someone had touched his John. His John might be dead.

He had to be safe. Sherlock had done all of this for him. Everything couldn't be for nothing! Every ounce of—oh. _Oh. _This was how John felt? That everything he had focused on for years had been wasted? Sherlock felt like a right dick at that moment.

He raced past Donovan and Anderson's incredulous faces toward the ambulance. _Yes. _John was there, huddled under one of those infernal shock blankets Sherlock protested to, and he was safe.

"Sherlock?" John called upon seeing him. "What are you doing here? Everyone can see—."

"Shut up," he commanded. Before John could react, he pulled the shorter man up with two hands on either side of his jaw and promptly met his lips with his.

And the whole world felt right.

* * *

John had been sitting peacefully in his flat, pondering where his relationship with Sherlock would go—nowhere, knowing the man; he was married to his work after all—when the door had opened and two men had stormed in. Before John could so much as utter protest, they brought the end of a gun down on the side of his head. The world had gone fuzzy, and when it stopped spinning, John was bound with rope on the couch, posed with a sign, and glaring heavily at the man holding John's phone up in front of his face.

"Smile," the second man said from his right, mask failing to hide his own grin. "Might be the last time your pretty detective ever sees you."

John didn't know why he had ever missed this lifestyle. Dread rolled around in his stomach until he felt sick. The army, Sherlock, did he just have a craving for putting his life in danger? That dread increased when the men mentioned Moriarty's name. Moriarty who had strapped him to a vest and threatened to kill him. Moriarty who had caused Sherlock's death and in turn, almost his own. Needless to say, John hated the man. He also feared that the third time Moriarty's aimed in his direction would be the last.

The man did love a show.

John was surprised when all the men did was drop him off at a small park in the area that no one played at, or at least, not this late in the fall season.

"Move an inch after us and we blow your head off. Got it?" the man who had taken his picture said, waving around his gun for clarification. Sherlock would have ripped him to shreds for such a show of blatant idiocy, if Sherlock were here.

He closed his eyes as the men retreated. It wasn't the first time in the past two years he had yearned for his flatmate, but this time it was for an entirely different reason. It wasn't because he was gone and it made John feel hopeless. It was because he was alive and not here.

Doubt washed over him. Would Sherlock even show up after John's display of emotions the other day? Why on Earth would he stick around for that? He tried to reassure himself by remembering that Sherlock had voluntarily stayed afterward and explained his faked suicide. But didn't Sherlock get bored easily?

That was the one thought that scared John more than Moriarty: that Sherlock would get bored with him and toss him away. He had wondered for a time if that was why he jumped, but Sherlock, although dramatic, did nothing with a menial purpose.

The police had shown up nearly thirty minutes later and untied John, ushering him to an ambulance and wrapping a blanket around his shoulders that only reminded him of Sherlock. Lestrade asked him questions, but he was too distracted by the fact Sherlock hadn't shown up. Maybe he was bored—no, what if he was dead? What if Moriarty had—?

That train of thought stopped when everyone started turning around with gasps and Lestrade buried his face in his hand while muttering '_Does he think about _anything _before he does it?_' A familiar head of hair, a navy scarf, and coat made their way through the crowd.

Despite his relief, John knew the ramifications of showing of his status of living before Lestrade helped him clear his name. "Sherlock?" he called once he was within hearing distance. "What are you doing here? Everyone can see—."

"Shut up," Sherlock growled with ferocity. John didn't have time to blink in the instant he took Sherlock to hoist him up by his jaw and slot his lips against his.

Warmth bloomed in John's chest as those hands held him close and those lips worked against his. Maybe it wasn't bad to have hope, to believe in something that seemed entirely possible. Sherlock pulled away with an unsatisfied face, but he opened his mouth before John's hopes could die.

"Why am I doing this? It doesn't make anything better. It's completely illogical." John just smiled at him and wrapped his arms around Sherlock's neck. The blanket fell to the grass, forgotten, as John claimed his flatmate's lips again. This time, Sherlock dissolved into the kiss. His arms wrapped around John's too thin frame, and he kissed John over and over, chastely, sweetly, protectively, possessively, until everyone in the area knew who John belonged to.

"Why?" he mumbled against John's lips after a minute or two. "Why me?"

John chuckled. "You're asking obvious questions again." Sherlock quirked a brow. "Because it's you. The one and only." He tried to reach for another kiss, but Sherlock denied him.

"He's going to come back. You would be safer if…" He couldn't suggest it.

John just kissed him. After all the pain, the guilt, the hopeless sadness, and fear, John was happy where he ended up. Even if he could redo his entire life and erase the fall, he wouldn't. Not if it meant giving up this.

Lestrade cleared his throat in the background, and Sally muttered a very distinct, high-pitched, "What the _hell?_"

Sherlock, like always, just ignored them.

* * *

Molly awkwardly exited the lab. Sherlock was propped on a stool, gazing through the microscope, as John tried to find something to interest him.

"The paper comes out today," John said. It was the one that would have the real story about Sherlock, the one he had worked with Lestrade to prove. Finally, Sherlock would be able to leave the flat without worrying about being mugged or arrested.

Sherlock hummed in acknowledgement. Nothing much had changed since that night two months ago. Sherlock moved back in, went back to demanding tea and playing his bloody violin at three in the morning, and rarely so much as looked at John when he was on a case Lestrade reluctantly gave him.

"Phone," Sherlock demanded.

John rolled his eyes. This, of course, hadn't changed. He walked across the room and reached into his flatmate's—just flatmate?—coat pocket to pull out his phone. When he leaned in, Sherlock turned his head at just the right moment to press a kiss to John's lips. He smirked triumphantly when John withdrew with his phone, confused. He tried to shake it off and offered the phone to Sherlock.

"I don't need it."

"Then, why did you ask me to get it for you?" John asked, exasperated. This time, John caught the knowing smirk, and his own softer smile followed. He leaned in to put the phone back, this time expecting the kiss Sherlock planted on his lips, slow and deliberate. John kissed back.

This was why he put up with it: for the little things.

* * *

_A/N: Is it bad I wrote the entire fic just because the last scene had been floating in my head? It seemed cute. This is not at all my best work by any means. I rarely put effort into fanfiction - have my own novels to write. God knows there are enough Post-Reich fics out there, but I had to write my own addressing two scenarios that crop up often. I also hate the fact Sherlock never really addresses his feelings for John in my fic and that the kidnapping is so abrupt, but that wasn't my focus here. Maybe if I edit. Doubtful. Part Two is up._


	2. Then, try, try again

_A/N: Have ye no fear. Yes, half the chapter is exactly the same as the last chapter. You can skip down if you want. Like in Schrodinger's Cat, the actual proposal, everything is the same, up to a point where it diverts into a different, opposite reality existing simultaneously with the first. Like the cat, John is both dead and alive at the same time. You've been warned. -gore and character death-_

* * *

John could feel the tear tracks dried on his face. Any day in the past, he might've brought the back of his hand up and tried to rub them into nonexistence—he was a soldier, dammit. Was. He choked out another sob. Everything just _was. _His job _was. _Company _was. _Eating _was. _Happiness _was._

Sherlock _was._

He buried his head in his hands pathetically and tried to stifle the tremors and tears. Nothing was helping. Nothing helped anymore. Before Sherlock, he was nothing but a useless doctor with a limp and nightmares, and after, he was a pitiful excuse for a man that had driven off his friends because they reminded him too much of life with his flatmate, because they didn't _understand_ how he felt no matter how many times they patted his shoulder and told him otherwise. What was the point of eating or smiling when he had a gigantic hole in his chest?

Too many questions. Why did Sherlock jump? What had he been trying to accomplish? Why didn't John mean anything to him? No. He meant something. Sherlock had made him watch as he jumped, as he severed their ties. Why did he call John—why did he use those last words to lie to him?

_I believed in you._

He lifted his eyes and made out the flat through his blurry vision. Everything was untouched. Mrs. Hudson had tried to convince him to donate Sherlock's things; his therapist had suggested he at least go through them to help the healing process. He didn't want to talk to either of them. They didn't know how hard it was, how pointless it was, to rifle through his flatmate's things, stirring up dust and memories, the hope he might hear _that_ petulant voice in the background commanding him to cease at once so that John could yell back, call him a hypocrite for always violating John's space and using his things.

He never knew how much he would miss him. The violin at three in the morning. The bullet holes in the wall. Feet in the fridge. The way he clenched his hand and brought it to his face when he was thinking about something particularly stressful. That deep voice demanding tea. Those eyes giving him The Look. They had all been a part of his life for too bloody long just to have them ripped away without any warning.

His words at the graveyard came back to him.

_I was alone._

_I owe you so much._

He hadn't been back but once since. He'd tried to go on his own, but standing there, staring at that damned black stone with those letters glaring back at him, mocking him, gloating that they had his friend and were never going to return him, John Watson had never felt so alone, so helpless, and so empty. Not even when he was shot and lost the only career and home he'd known for so long. This was much worse. He had lost his other half this time. That's what they were, weren't they? Doctor John Watson and Sherlock Holmes.

Could one exist without the other?

John was done trying. He glanced down at the phone on the table, lit up with the name of a contact that could no longer contact him. It was a wonder the phone even worked, but John assumed Mycroft had to do with the paying of his bill, just like he assumed Mrs. Hudson was covering the rent of the flat.

He knew that was the extent of their service, however, because what John was about to do, he had already contemplated twice before. If Mycroft were watching, he would have stopped him. Or would he? If he didn't interfere, all loose ends would be nicely tied up—but he knew that the Holmeses did adore leaving messes behind.

This would be the last time he cleaned up after Sherlock.

Next to the phone was a gun, already loaded. All he needed to do was stick it in his mouth and aim upward like he'd done twice before. The only difference was that he would pull the trigger this time and the pain would stop. He slid his left hand around the weight of it and brought it up. Another round of tremors shook him, but he managed to bite them back long enough to open his mouth, barrel sliding in, teeth clattering against it.

_Goodbye._

* * *

Sherlock tossed his disguise in a trash receptacle as he passed it and strode a little too merrily en route to a black door that for a long time he associated with home. It was a ridiculous thought, of course. Sherlock Holmes, despite the irony of his name, did not have a home. He had places to conduct experiments, to pace, to make coffee, and to play his violin, but he did not have homes.

Then, why return here?

A familiar smile flashed through his mind's eye. He could almost hear the exasperated '_brilliant_' muttered from those lips, something that brought a smile to his own, no matter how he tried to hide it or suppress it. He felt a strong, unwavering hand that had killed for him slide across his chest to pluck out his phone—could almost taste the tea he demanded that always overwhelmed his tongue with a indubitable warming sense of _John._

No, Sherlock Holmes did not have a home by definition. He didn't have four walls, a roof, and a place to sleep that he'd attached sentiment to. He had a man that had always been at his side, through good and bad. John was his home, and at long last, he was returning.

He opened the door, surprised to find it unlocked, but then again, he presumed that once he'd left the picture, all the excitement and need for protection had as well. At least after a while. Mycroft, upon finding him alive through his unfathomable network of cameras, had updated Sherlock with short texts that told him about John.

_Break in. -MH_

_Rocks thrown at window. -MH_

_Thwarted spray paint attempt. –MH_

If Sherlock hadn't started ignoring the texts, he might have received ones like _John hasn't left flat for days _or _He attempted suicide _and its companion message a few months later with the same words and _again_ tacked on to the end. Sherlock had to focus on taking down Moriarty, who he knew was alive, and his web of criminals, and he'd done just that. Moran was dead, as well as a good number of men Sherlock himself had the pleasure to dismantle.

As for Moriarty, well, Mycroft had ensured his arrival to and holding at the top psychiatric ward in the country.

He looked both ways for Mrs. Hudson, and not finding her, he bounded up the familiar steps. With each stair, his confidence faded and his ascent slowed. What if John didn't want to see him? No, of course he did. As long as Sherlock explained himself, John would accept the truth—accept _him_—and move on, back to how things used to be. That was where his knowledge of human emotions failed him. He could see their outward signs, catalogue them to a science, but he didn't know what instigated them and what didn't. _Would _John be happy? _Would _he understand? Sherlock remembered John's reaction to his apparent disregard for Mrs. Hudson's health the day he jumped.

_You machine._

Would he still be a machine for having saved John's life? For having saved Lestrade's and Mrs. Hudson's? Even if he explained it, he knew John wouldn't see it that way. He didn't know why—God, he didn't understand people—but he knew exact how John would react. This didn't deter his approach.

On the closed door to their flat was a note that, judging by the creases and placement of the tape, had been placed in distress or hurry. Upon reading the note, written in shaky, sharp writing, he knew it was both.

_Mrs. Hudson,_

_Thank you for trying to help me. I don't know how to pay you back, but I'll start with this. Don't open the door. I don't want you to see this._

_Please. For me._

_John Watson_

Any other time, Sherlock would have rolled his eyes at the signature. Of course it was John who had written it. It was outside of their door, and John was the only one who lived in the flat. But he didn't roll his eyes. All his merriment of returning promptly fled the premises.

_Don't want her to see what, John?_

Without thinking, Sherlock opened the door.

Never in a million years would he have deduced what he found. John was sitting on the couch, back straight, shoulders shaking. His head was tilted forward, and his eyes were clenched shut. Sherlock could see their redness from here, could see every detail. The tears. The unkempt hair, sticking in a thousand directions from John running his hands through it obsessively and tugging. The tension in his posture. The phone on the table, alight with something Sherlock couldn't see. But the gun. He mostly saw the gun, the barrel of which had disappeared into John's mouth, his hand wrapped so tightly around it his knuckles were white, the finger simultaneously clutching the trigger as John's eyes opened to the doorway.

_Bang!_

Blood spattered the wall, skull fragments held tight to the wallpaper by brain matter. The gun slipped out of John's mouth and hit the ground, his slack hand unable to clench it, and John fell back.

Fell. Just like Sherlock fell. Everything went in slow motion as John slumped lifelessly back into the couch, and Sherlock was rushing forward.

"John! _John!" _he yelled. How could this be happening? Why was it happening? This wasn't his John. His John was strong.

He didn't know what to do. He'd been to thousands of crime scenes, saw the result of this—he wouldn't even label it for now—but he had never witnessed one. Did he check for a pulse? Did he perform CPR? God, he didn't even know CPR; he had deleted things like that. Sherlock Holmes didn't help people. Now, he wished that he had taken others' health and wellbeing into account.

He cradled his old flatmate's head, which had fallen back against the sofa, between his hands. "John," he pleaded. "_John._" This was all wrong. It was supposed to be a happy day. Sherlock would come home, and John would be there, making tea, smiling at him and muttering endearments like they were the periods to his sentences.

He wasn't supposed to be d—. Sherlock's mind clamped down on the word. When he pulled back his hands to reach for the phone in his coat pocket, they were covered with blood. Sherlock didn't even bother wiping them off as he unlocked the device, dialed in a familiar number, and pressed the blood-smeared screen to his cheek.

It rang once.

_'Is this some kind of prank?_' Lestrade's voice barked into the phone.

"Lestrade…"

_'Jesus Christ, it is you. How—?'_

"Please," Sherlock begged, and if the word alone wasn't enough to get Lestrade's attention, the hopeless, pained tone was. "John, he—." Emotion choked him, but he was beyond caring. Emotions had always been a part of the equation with John. With anyone else, he locked them away, but Sherlock had known for a long time that that wouldn't work with his flatmate; it hadn't really surprised him to burst into tears when he'd called John atop St. Bart's. There was no act there; Sherlock was truly, genuinely sorry for the hurt he was going to cause John, and if he had known it was the last time he would ever hear his voice—.

No, John was going to live. Lestrade would come, and they would take him to a hospital, and after stomping around the waiting room impatiently, a doctor would come out and tell him that John was okay. They'd operated and he was fine.

_'I'm on my way. Don't move.'_

* * *

When Lestrade arrived with the paramedics, they were shocked to find that Sherlock had curled up on the couch next to John. He had gently cupped his head and brought it to his neck, scarf pulled away so that he was skin to skin with John, letting the blood soak his chin and clothes. He didn't even acknowledge the team as they rushed into the flat. His gaze was unseeing, straight ahead, and he only protested when John was pulled away from him and placed on a gurney.

Lestrade tried to calm him as he held him back. The emergency crew manoeuvred John down the stairs. "They're going to take him to the hospital." Sherlock helplessly met his eyes. Never in all his years had Lestrade seen Sherlock this shaken, or shaken at all. Even after nearly being killed by a cabbie, Sherlock had pranced around like there wasn't a care in the world. "I can take you there."

Sherlock nodded weakly. His gaze strayed to the coffee table where the John's cell phone remained. Despite Lestrade's warning, Sherlock picked it up. He unlocked the screen only to see his own name staring back at him, and then, the world vanished.

* * *

Sherlock came to in the hospital waiting room. He didn't know how he got there, but judging by the reactions around him, he hadn't lost consciousness. He'd receded so deep into his mind that he couldn't even remember what room of his Mind Palace he'd been in. Lestrade was talking to a doctor a ways a way, shaking his head and glancing back in Sherlock's direction.

He should have known from that very moment. He should have deduced the news right there, but God damn hope crawled up in his chest and told him not to believe it. He wasn't going to believe it. He wasn't going to.

Lestrade sauntered back over. Gait slow. Hesitant. Unsure. Thought about stopping twice. But then he's in front of Sherlock, who's still sitting in hospital chair that isn't the right amount of comforting it should have been.

"Sherlock—,"

_No, no, no, no! _his mind screamed. That tone, that stupid tone Lestrade used to tell family members their loved ones were the crime scene. He would not hear it. He hopped up from his chair and stormed off.

Lestrade's voice stopped him after three steps. "You need to hear it, Sherlock."

"Don't you dare—!" he yelled as he whirled around. Worried family members peeked up across the entire waiting room. Sherlock could tell Lestrade anything about any one of them. The woman in the corner had a husband who had fallen off a ladder. The teenage girl to his right had a younger brother that needed stitches because their father had beaten him again. He could see everything, right down to the look in their eyes that told them they pitied him but that they were grateful he was the one with the bad news and not them. "Don't say it." Sherlock's eyes burned. "Please."

Lestrade gave him that look, too. "He's gone, Sherlock. John's dead."

* * *

On the way back to the department for Sherlock to give his statement, he didn't say a single word. If Lestrade had thought the man was stoic before, then now, he was a God damn statue. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, and he only blinked when he had to.

They conducted everything in Greg's office, but Sherlock didn't say much beyond what he was required to. It was as if his entire vocabulary had been cut down to _John _and a few other necessary words.

Lestrade said they were finished, got up to open the door, and waited for Sherlock. No sooner than he stood was Sally in the doorway.

"Look who it is." She huffed in feigned amusement. "Freak's back from the dead just to see his precious little blogger—." Lestrade warned her. "What? Don't you think it's a bit of a coincidence?"

"Sally, I'm going to have to ask you to leave if you don't stop. Sherlock's been through enough tonight."

"Sherlock!" she echoed. "John's the one that's been through hell and back. Did you know he stopped leaving his flat? Even quit his job. Read all about it in the papers after you died." She crossed her arms. "You strung him along and ditched him to go play Marley's Ghost, and you're not even sorry."

"Sally!" Lestrade warned for the third time.

"I'm glad he's dead, because at least he's finally away from yo…" The sentence trailed off. Sally's eyes widened. Perhaps she had always pushed for it, but once it became a reality, Sally realized she never meant to be so cruel. This _wasn't _what she wanted, and she'd never expected to see it. She thought Hell would freeze over and aliens would take over Earth before she saw it.

In front of her, in the doorway to Lestrade's office, Sherlock clenched his eyes shut, muttered a strangled '_John,' _and immediately dissolved into sobs. Lestrade, despite being just as shocked, led Sherlock back to the chair he had occupied, which Sherlock folded himself into. He shook relentlessly as he wept, and one by one, tears smacked into the floor beneath his feet. It only made Sherlock cry harder. Each tear was committing suicide, jumping from his chin to collide with the floor, just like Sherlock had done. Over and over and over.

John had killed himself because of him.

It clicked, and it felt like all the air had been robbed from Sherlock's body. Sally had been thrown out, and Lestrade was now awkwardly patting Sherlock's back.

"It's not your fault," he kept repeating.

_But it is._

* * *

Sherlock stared down at the broken remains of his violin. The neck was contorted around, the body shattered. The severed strings stretched across the floor as if begging for help. He had ripped the pegs out and smashed the bridge beneath his feet, and in his hands, under enough pressure, the bow finally splintered and snapped in two.

Nothing mattered anymore. John was the one precious thing he had been entrusted with, that he had always wanted to keep safe and treasure, and Sherlock had screwed it all up. He'd miscalculated how John would take the fall, and it had cost John his life. He didn't deserve any more valuable things to protect and cherish, not when he'd lost the most important one.

The thing that struck him the most of the sick sense of irony. Sherlock had done this to keep John alive, and it had ended up being the reason he was dead. His eyes flitted over to the sofa before he collapsed into John's chair.

_John's _chair. It still smelled like him, like tea and jam and the surgery. If Sherlock kept sitting here, maybe it would disappear. Maybe he could erase John's entire existence and stop hurting, but he didn't want that. He wanted to remember that smile, those stupid puns for blog titles, those hideous jumpers that somehow still got John dates.

He'd known for a while why he chased off all the women John brought home—no, to the flat; there was no home, not anymore. He'd just refused to dwell on the reason. Now was a pretty pathetic time to bring it up, but his mind ignored his protests.

Why hadn't he ever had the initiative? It would have been so easy. After the pool incident. At Baskerville. All he had to do was lean down to John's upturned face and—.

No. This wasn't helping.

He stood up, dropped his broken bow to the ground with its murdered companion, and made his way to the door. Donning his coat and scarf and grabbing John's old cane—recently reused, relapse—Sherlock marched down the stairs and hailed a cab. The driver gave him a pitying look as he dropped him off near the graveyard. He knew. They all bloody knew. It was everywhere in the papers. His return. John's su—accident. The truth.

Maybe it was sentiment or selfishness, but Sherlock had had John buried next to his own empty gravesite. His family didn't deserve him, and maybe Sherlock didn't, either, but part of him knew that if he had caused John's death, he meant a great deal to John. It was only natural they spend eternity side by side.

He read both black stones. SHERLOCK HOLMES on the left. JOHN WATSON on the right. There were no more tears left in him to be spilt, so he propped the cane against John's tombstone, patted the marker affectionately, and apologized for the umpteenth time to thin air.

Sherlock heard his phone go off. Why on Earth had he left it in his pocket? The last thing he wanted was to be interrupted during his time at the graveyard, which was often. It was his new thinking place because God knew he was lost without his blogger.

He pulled out the phone and opened the text he'd received.

_Pity about your doctor, love._

_-Jim Moriarty x_

Sherlock wasn't surprised. Nothing would stop James Moriarty. Not even death.

The game was on, and for John's sake, he was going to win.

* * *

_A/N: I've always wanted to write a fic where Sherlock cries. Dunno why. Also, I have never witnessed a suicide, so pardon inaccuracies. All I know is what I've seen on TV - oh _that's _trustworthy - and what my mortician grandpa likes to tell me over holiday dinners. Anywho, hoping this chapter explains Sherlock's feelings. I like to write depressing things._


End file.
